


A Snake in the Grass

by erudipitous, Wanderbird



Series: A Pawn Off The Board [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bullying, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Gen, dudley being a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23424040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erudipitous/pseuds/erudipitous, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: The Serpent of Eden was minding his own business when he found himself engaging in a little surreptitious bullying prevention. It was only after he'd slithered away that he realized there was something special about that kid...
Relationships: Crowley (Good Omens) & Harry Potter
Series: A Pawn Off The Board [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685818
Comments: 10
Kudos: 491





	A Snake in the Grass

It was a beautiful day in Little Whinging. The sun was warm, the birds were chirping.  
And at Number 4 Privet Drive, a group of little boys wrestled in the grass.

"Come on, Marcus! Catch him!"  
The smallest of the children took off at a sprint, and the others followed like a herd of elephants. Before long, the boy in the lead was tackled to the pavement of the road. No one noticed the faint trickle of blood from the back of his black hair, or if they did, no one cared.

"I got him!" The boy on top crowed. "C'mon, Dudley, let's have another go!"

Another kid strode forward from the middle of the pack. His gait was that of little boys everywhere that knew themselves to be king of the world, as this young Dudley had so often been told. "Nah," he proclaimed, and the boys quieted. "Let's tie him to the swings in the park instead, so we can watch him squirm trying to get out." Dudley gave his cousin a kick. "Get up already, Harry, I want to have some fun!"  
He and the other boy, Marcus, each took an arm and hauled the littlest to his feet. 

The swings were only a few meters away, and soon they plopped the dazed young Harry in front of a swing. It took a moment for the assembled pack to figure out how to attach him to it, by the simple expedient of flipping the middle part with the swing around his arms until the rubber-coated chains held him largely immobilized.

"Whatcha gonna do about it, freak?"

* * *

Anthony J. Crowley would be the first to admit it: He was a snake. Not a sneaky, backstabbing figurative snake, unless it suited him at the time — No, Crowley was being completely literal when he called himself a snake. Right now, for instance, he was a small common adder, sunning himself in the warm grass of Little Whinging, Surrey.

Or at least, that had been his intention.

But now there were kids playing and they would probably find him, and step on him or yell to their parents and that never ended well. Crowley hissed out a sigh. Time to move on, he supposed. He didn't want to hurt them. _Bloody kids,_ Crowley grumbled to himself. But this was their world, not his, and they were bloody well allowed to play in it.

A cry caught his attention, all of a sudden.

Being a demon had made Crowley somewhat inured to the cries of humans. But this, the mewling of children — well, he'd never quite been able to shut that out completely. Or, well, at all. He’d never been very good at the whole wanton cruelty part of being a demon. So instead of ignoring it and moving on like he probably should, Crowley slithered toward the sound.

 _Oh,_ he realized. _Oh, bugger._ _  
_ The boy couldn't be more than six years old. Dirty and sniffling, blatantly underfed and struggling to escape the swing he'd gotten tangled up in between the jeering of the other kids around him. And none of them were helping! That wouldn't do in the slightest.  
Crowley slid around, instead, behind the children, willing his body to grow and darken into a more intimidating dusty black with a red belly, with several meters of length. He reared up — 

One of the children _shrieked._ "Snake!" he yelled. "Oh my god! Oh my god look at that snake!"

The littlest one was still staring, tied up in the swing set. Crowley felt a grim satisfaction in his gut, then as he opened his mouth and hissed. " _Go on, nasty little things."_ He allowed his tongue to flicker from his mouth, unfolded a hood from his neck like a cobra, simply for the scare factor. _"Leave the poor kid alone. And be nice to your mothers."_

It didn’t even take a miracle for the children to flee, still shrieking, from the playground.

Crowley shrank himself down again as he lay back in the grass. The little one still struggled to extricate himself until Crowley, resigned, miracled him free.

The kid sat back in the grass. Stared. Finally, he spoke.  
" _…Hello, mister snake. Thank you very much for helping me_."

The demon's smile was for himself alone. " _Anytime,"_ he hissed. _"Not often I'm in the neighborhood, but I do like to help."_ _  
_ _"Oh, that's alright,"_ the kid sighed. _"I can hide from them sometimes, at least, so I don't need help all the time. And usually they aren't quite that creative."_ A faint smile. _"It's good to meet you, mister snake, even if you probably have to go now."_

It was true. He did have to go.

So Crowley dipped his head to the child and slithered homeward, though not before miracling away the cut on the poor thing's head, and it was not until he was halfway through another nap that he realized — _Hold on. That kid was speaking snake!_

_It's been thousands of years since I met a human that could speak snake!_


End file.
